What Does it All Mean? John Stumme Discusses War in Kryta Survey Results | ArenaNet

Obviously we dont have the complete details so its hard to comment this but im also thinking wouldnt making an outpost for people to meet on seperated from the original mission outpost potentially make it harder to find a group as the people are more spread out.
I am really looking forward to see some builds people will come up with though that utilise 7 heroes despite the inevitable cookie cutter PVX stuff occuring ~ atleast they don't get to use PVE Skills. Anyone remember the days where you couldnt control henchies at all...awwww

QFT. I truly do enjoy the game. All aspects of it. I've played PvE and PvP with all sorts of people of all sorts of skill levels. It's been a blast! Even when getting rolled by "broken" builds while running "balanced". And vice versa! I miss the hilarity of edge bombs.

The only other game I've played for even half as long was D2. (I think that's because even one misspent point totally jacks your build into non-viability.) I gave WoW a chance. I tried to like it. I really did. It was as much fun as gouging my eyes out with a spoon.

I think they are just getting ready for the big transition to make GW's a standalone solo game in the near future and then become legacy. I imagine shutdown will occur about 1 year after GW2 comes out for the full transition.

I think a wee bit later than that. It would be nice for it to be released at the 6th anniversary, but it's not gonna happen. However, with the shopping GW2 to every game convention around, I don't think it will be as late as this time next year. I am thinking summer-ish. July maybe.

Oh, I hope not. That would be sad!

I was hoping they would add Shining Blade/White Mantle Faction and titles with the WiK update. Proph is the only campaign that doesn't have faction, and it would have been nice to have had the books and missions update to reward Faction to make them worth repeating.

Hanok

Yep and make them non retroactive? The pic below says it all.

Xunlai Market. The outpost is already there.

This is a very unique post. And I like the Spirit of it. I even agree with it on some meritocratic & behavioral levels. ...if only it transcended theory.

I'm in a good Guild, and I've even found good PuGs. But one thing that still hasn't happened, the one thing that's still holding everyone back from the Utopian slant of this post, is the horrible old designs of class interactions. IE: There's Monk primary and ER's .... and then there's everything else. You just can't be a Dervish or Paragon or Ritualist primary and hope to hold a candle to a seeding monk or ER emo. And you can't get into most HM pugs or even most normal UW/DOA's unless you're one of the prior. Some of the smartest & friendliest people I know in this game, run those raids constantly but I can't play their effing reindeer games unless I bring my monk with a goddamned Gimmick Healz build.

Why is this problem? B/c people by now have filled up all their character slots with different professions. And they had atleast 6 to 8 slots to fill... which they DID fill with 1 of each primary they were interested in and they have those characters built around doing the things those professions are meant to. They didn't roll 2 monk primaries for every Pressure or Melee or Nuker character they own. But the retarded old class requirements & ZB/ZM grinds of this game for most content expect 2 human monks and the Monk AI heroes just don't cut it.

I want this John Stumme guy to get off the friggin Podium of hype and get down here with the rest of us and tell us how the frik they're going to address that. He's coming here straight from GW2 where they claim to have already fixed this problem... SO WHEN HE GONNA APPLY THAT KNOWLEDGE HERE?? When is this now-going-on 6-years-old problem finally gonna get fixed?

Will they atleast pledge to make Seed independent of Divine attribs so that more /Mo secondaries can atleast get into some of these high end teams?

This game's supposed to have atleast 5 support classes but you could hardly tell it has more than 1 if you look at any of the high end groupings ... Necro wells & Ranger junk can't support a team well enough to be PvE meta. Motivation & Spears can't support a team well enough to be PvE meta either. Every single attribute a Dervish has access too; can't support a team well enough to be PvE meta... I know b/c I've tried for 4 loooong years. And no one even thinks to bring a Mesmer along to expel Hexes b/c the only mesmer slot allowed is either Panic or it's GTFO. Infact none of the other support classes have any flexibility towards dealing with Hex spam & scattered mobs. And does "buffing Smiting" mean they'll finally nerf Heal prayers and Mob Zerging?...Probly' not b/c it's too late for that. I'm sick to death of still seeing "LF 2 MONKS 2 GO" and I wanna know what they're going to do to fix it b/c just having a good guild helps but it's still not enough to fix it.



TL;DR summary:
No one wants to be a monk every waking moment they're in this game.
Infact most don't even wanna do it part-time. ...and I'm saying this as primary Monk player.

...Eventually, at some point, everyone wants to play something besides a backline Gimmick Healer without leaving it up to the idiotic antics of Dunkoro & Ogden and that's the thing Anet knows they need to address most if they want to make this content more accessible as the Polls stated. The current Meta is just plain anti-social and accounts for a big chunk of the "How easy was it to party with other players" responses.

Absolutely - they did that with Factions anyway I think, though I still am holding on to my completed Proph's books just out of wishful thinking.

Unfortunately that's the problem with on-line only games. For as much time as I have invested in GW over the last 5 years, I hate to think of a time in the future where I can't just load up the disc and have a go. I still enjoy booting up my old favs from the late '80's and '90's every once in a while. It would be nice to be able to do this 10 years down the road with GW too.

@ilr
Yup, the problem of the Holy Trinity. As another person earlier in the thread mentioned, a lot of primes have had it tough over the years - Assassin's in Factions, MM's and Mesmer's in Prophecies, etc. That has been the underlying issue in the whole game - in order to be balanced, you have to have good builds and bad builds. Unfortunately, by limiting the amount of viable builds, you limit creativity and diversity. That's one of the reasons I usually play solo - so I can play my A/R with a bow-centric skills, and my N/D as a scythe-wielding Grim Reaper, and my W/R as a bow-wielding BM. Playing solo allows me to play with builds I find fun and interesting, and it allows me to adjust the difficulty of the game to my own liking by playing sub-optimal builds. Unfortunately, the game design does not allow for great success of that in higher end areas, and makes it nearly impossible to do in any area with a PUG.

Hanok

They did,unlike EOTN books which was a whole other outcry.

Wahooo good point, and I bet they worked over the party search system with scraps of code from the trading too.

I don't think it will matter a whole lot. People using Embark Beach will probably be looking to do HM/Masters/Zaishen stuff, and wouldn't be all that open to taking along a lvl 13 'lfg for mission' with them anyway. If anything it might make mission outposts less frustrating for new players, because there'll be fewer groups in their outpost that refuse to take them in, making it more likely that they'll be able to group with the people who actually are there.

Does anyone know when this update is suppose to be released?

lol you appear to be new here. You will learn quickly. Anet NEVER releases a timetable for updates anymore. Mostly because they know they are unable to keep up with said timetables.

When it's ready™

I am really surprised only 50.7% love the idea of 7 heroes. I would have thought this would be much higher from all the fanfaire I've seen about it.

At any rate finally everyone will be able to do the elite areas without having to wait for a PUG or having to have some special required or gimmick build to get in them or do them. Everyone can farm ectos now at their own pleasure and pace and builds. I'm definitely inlove with this feature that is coming. Finally elitists are going to be put in their place.

Not necessarily. The problem with the elite areas has been the need for more specialized/refined builds, which the typical casual player simply doesn't know how to run. In order to have any success in these areas, whether using a full hero party or not, you'll need to have those builds for your character and heroes. The only difference will be you won't have to wait to get into a party, nor deal with the attitude of other players if/when you fail.

Hanok

Is there any inclination as to a rough time of WHEN this patch might occur? I mean even a "Q2 2011" would be a close enough estimate. >_>

I wouldn't think so. My guess is that they will put the servers on autopilot with automated events every 5 days that last for 2 days (the weekend events). While I do think they will stop with game updates about a yearish (or less) into GW2, they wouldnt completely shut down the servers. At least i hope not...

As for GW1 shutting down a year or so after GW2: I'm half and half on that.

A) GW1 is non subscription. I have a hard time already figuring out how it brings in enough money to stay afloat as it is, much less when a bigger better version of it (GW2) comes out. Less people buying games/addons = less money to keep the servers up.

B) GW2 is almost an entirely different game. On top of that the graphics are nice. Ok, VERY nice. This means people who have computers that can push GW1 may not be able to support GW2. On top of this, some folks may pull an everquest and decide they like GW1 better anyhow. I mean, this whole 7 hero thing has taken me from thinking "Eh, GW1 will keep me pre-occupied till the sequel comes out" to thinking "screw any other game. I just wanna play this one!". So yea, there is also a possibility Guild Wars may not be going anywhere.

GW2 will eventually subsidize GW1 I would imagine until GW1 usage falls below an acceptable level.

I kinda like his 'do.

7 Heroes wont change the way I play.
i.e. not at all.

If players are playing with other people it should be because they want to play with other people not because they are shoehorned into doing so by the crappy alternative options.

At the end of the day, regardless of whether this leads to less people puging, this will likely increase the number of people who are able to complete content and that can only be a good thing. Honestly, hero parties will probably result in more balance party builds being used to finish places like UW, FoW and dungeons instead of the hardcore gimmicks players are forced into by 90% of the puging crowd. This change will ironically encourage players to play GW more like the game it's supposed to be. With limited heroes for class combinations and no snobbing of "undesired classes" (honestly, play a normal sin/ranger/dervish and tell me people are breaking down doors to group with you) parties of mixed classes will be a lot more common, albeit even if they only have one human player in them.

It's amusing how wrong you are. I was able to complete UW with a mixed bag of classes that didn't use specialised/refined builds. That just shows how unhealthy the mindset of the elitist players from these areas is. I had an alliance that wouldn't let me use a ritualist healer for our jade arena fast faction farm because they only wanted a monk. No-one ever died when I was on my rit and because it was only healing we didn't perform slower, players just think the "specialised/refined" builds are the only way to complete content and don't bother to give anything else a chance.

The beauty of heroes is they run what you want them to run, which means you are free to run on the player character whatever build you want while the heroes cover the gaps. There will be a very wide range of different builds and party set ups completing elite areas after this update and many of them won't be running "specialised/refined" builds. It's not the lack of skill which leads casual players to dislike elite areas, it's the uber niche play styles (limiting not only class choice but also build choice unnecessarily) and elitist atmosphere that sucks all fun out of the game faster than Paris Hilton at a frat party. I'm not saying all classes and builds are equal, I just find the proposition that casual players aren't completing elite content because they lack the skill or ability to be laughably wrong. That's not saying classes don't need to be rebalanced and buffed (eles, rangers, paras, dervs and most sin builds need to be looked at in PvE).

Warren & Deep 2-man

Yay! 7 heroes. Too bad, I finish everything in the game already with henchy.

Gonna miss Cynn, Lina, Mhenlo, Devona ;(

Really, my advice to everyone is just ignore PVX when 7 heroes are around, because someone will make a stupidly overpowered hero build, which prettymuch takes the fun away, killing things quickly can be fun at times, or when you are in a hurry, not have much time to play or whatever. but seriously, in my opinion building your own succesfull team is really much more rewarding then doing a copy & paste, and building cool skillbars is half the fun the game offers, not only is it fun, you learn from it as well. Skill > time remember.

As for guild wars servers being shut down, i think that this wont happen for a long time, since people can get rewards for gw2 by playing the original, theres probably still a lot of life left in guild wars. I do hope Arenanet will allow us to run our own servers once they close theirs, and that we get access to download our characters and storage so we can upload that to our own servers, i know its wishfull thinking, but it would be so awesome.

I can't wait for the heroes update. Soon I'll be able to steamroll just about any mission area at will. PUGing is dead, it's been dead for a while now, and enabling us with 7 heroes just seals the deal.

That's entirely subjective. Objectively, using a more optimal build will be getting you the desired rewards (money/mission completion/titles) more quickly.

Does this mean I can actually do HM stuff without the incompetency of bad players and bad AI? I'm glad Anet is finally supporting it's dead game. Keep this up and I can see Guild Wars living just long enough for GW2.

I couldn't have worded that any better myself. That is entirely the truth and the primary reason why 7 hero teams would be desireable.

I agree. This is one of the first things I thought of is it will be fun to play whatever I want custom balanced, and not shoehorned. 'Course I'll still cheese it where I feel like, but it will be nice that I can just ignore the SC mentality and play for fun.

Is it just me or does including 7 hero parties with the Embark Beach seem a tad counter intuitive

Yeah, so true

Between the HoM calculator and the HoM rewards and now 7 heros my faith in Anet is just about at an all time high. Well, as high as its been since they stopped releasing new expansions anyway.

Or an apeasment attempt for both sides?

Those how are in favor of 7 hero parties get them and those who are more about pugging and what not get an outpost to make it easier.

This isn't a new problem. Back when GW first launched it was even worse as you could only have 4 character slots and there were 6 classes, if you left a slot for PvP that means 3 characters.
A lot of players and guilds found themselves short of monks in the early days, so much so that it went on to cause the problems completing Thunderhead Keep where at one point monks went on strike to prevent players from doing the mission.

Roll onto today:
1) There are many more support classes in the game and there are many more character slots so players have the flexibility to play more professions in a variety of ways.
2) As you are aware, other classes can heal as well as monk (in most situations), players just need to be open to the idea and that this is the case and stop demanding players run certain builds.

I agree that it can be hard to get into X-meta team if you're not playing Y-meta build, and this is one of problems of these particular PUGs. However there are still plenty of PUGs out there to join that won't be demanding specific things and lots of players that just need help themselves.
Alternatively running around with a Guild/group of decent people can solve these issues as then players are generally just happy with anything.

The problem isn't that specific classes and builds are favoured by ANet and they don't you to play anything else, the problem is a lot of players unfortunately follow a trend or are just naive as to what builds can work.

Blindly expecting players to bring a specific profession with a specific build because that's what's on PvX wiki is bad and what causes current teams to wait around "LFG" while others just roll it with something they threw together (examples of which we've seen in this thread).

This update is likely to solve some of these issues, although you're still going to have similar problems with certain groups where they follow this line of thought. Unfortunately this is the way a lot of pugging has gone recently.

If they do shutdown, I hope they announce it. People would come off GW2 and their other games for one last day of celebration in GW1. People would be tossing their ectos around, laughing about their fortunes. And then the end.

Unless the sheer number of people makes anet change their mind so GW1 is reenabled and all the people who gave away their ectos the day before are really pissed.

Why would they shut down GW1? Not only have they already said they wouldn't, but with GW2 up, most players are expected to move to GW2, leaving GW1 with even fewer players. Which will mean fewer and fewer resources will be neede to run it.

Eventually, I expect in 5 years, GW1 will run on the sysadmin's old gaming PC for the hundred people that still play it

I'm pretty sure Arena Net have said that they plan to keep Guild Wars going, so I'm not sure where all this talk is coming from.